Bangladesh Youth Leadership Centre (BYLC), the country's first leadership institute, hosted a career fair at Lakeshore Hotel on 21 December, 2016. Organised by BYLC's Office of Professional Development (OPD), the career fair was first of a type by BYLC to connect potential job seekers with employers. The daylong event was attended by more than 300 university students and fresh graduates who graduated from diverse BYLC programmes and representatives of 20 of the country's leading employers from multiple sectors.
The event was inaugurated by Director of The American Centre Bangladesh Ann McConnell, BYLC Board Member and Assistant Professor of IBA in Dhaka University Homayara Ahmed, BYLC Chairperson Akhter Matin Chaudhury and BYLC President Ejaj Ahmad. The event was a part of the American Centre supported career readiness programme of BYLC.
Since its inception, BYLC has been connecting youths from diverse backgrounds and equipping them with leadership skills with the objective of building a prosperous, courageous and inclusiveness society. BYLC launched OPD in 2016 to provide professional development training and placement services to BYLC graduates. In our country's job market, there is a large gap between the expectations of the employees and employers. The OPD programme, which is a key unit of BYLC, seeks to connect with the leading employers across Bangladesh and help them source high potential talents from the BYLC graduate community.
Abrar Anwar, CEO of the Standard Chartered Bank Bangladesh, hailed leadership and communication as key factors for success in today's workplace. He visited the BYLC career fair and appreciated the event as a good initiative to foster these skills and help connect youths with potential employers.
The BYLC career fair worked as a single platform for both the demand side (employers) and supply side (BYLC graduates) of the employment market. Throughout the session, HR representatives interacted with graduates in closed groups, assessed resumes, and took on-the-spot interviews of the most promising candidates. "The career fair was a massive opportunity for information gathering for me," opined Hobieb Murtuza, one of the participants who is a BYLC graduate and also a senior student at North South University. "Career fair is not a place for jobs, it's a place where you are able to discover many new prospects for yourself," Hobieb further asserted. He was already encouraging young people to participate in career fairs from early stages of student life. He is confident that BYLC career fair has helped him reach closer to his dream and he is now better informed about his career choices and feels more optimistic about the competitive job market that awaits him upon completion of his graduation.
The event also included two plenary sessions with industry speakers as experts. The first one on 'Leadership skills for the 21st century workplace' was moderated by BYLC President and Founder Ejaj Ahmad and featured Senior Director of BRAC Asif Saleh, Assistant Professor of IBA in Dhaka University Homayara Ahmed and CEO of Praava Health Sylvana Quader. The second one on the 'Importance of skills development for economic prosperity of Bangladesh' included Head of HR at Renata Pharmaceuticals Nisbat Anwar, Head of HR of the City Bank Ltd Md. Tauhidul Alam, and Director of HR Compliance of Welfare and Admin of Ananta Group Quaseed A-A Chowdhury.
The 20 companies participating at the fair are Mutual Trust Bank Ltd., Brac Bank, The City Bank Ltd., Dhaka Bank, Green Delta Insurance Ltd., Adcomm, BRAC, ActionAid, Anwar Group, Ananta Group, Energypac Engineering Limited, bKash, US Embassy, UNDP, Praava Health, Paragon Group, Renata Pharmaceuticals, Zero Gravity, Apex Footwear Ltd and Standard Chartered Bank.
"More than 70 of our graduates received spot interview opportunities and some even received job offers on the spot," Ashfaque Kabir, manager of OPD team mentioned with pride. The OPD team is planning to make this an annual event in the coming years. "The expectations of BYLC are now higher both from the graduates as well as the employers to deliver even a bigger and better event in future," Mr. Kabir expressed with enthusiasm.
The BYLC career fair certainly ended on a successful note with both employers and graduates expressing their satisfaction. The OPD team has had a great start with the career fair and is now determined to move forward for the benefit of BYLC graduates.
The writer is a BYLC
graduate and a senior in BBA Programme, Department of Finance at Faculty of Business Studies, University of Dhaka,
[email protected]
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